Corona deaths have now surpassed 1 million people worldwide

[Andrew NDB]

Absolutely. Bernie doesn't play well with others (as in, the democratic party).

Bonus: he stood no chance at getting elected because only like 10-15% of people want actual socialism. It wouldn't even be close. They knew this. Also, he looks and sounds like a crazy man.

I mean, they want what he's preaching. But more than that, they need someone who would actually be able to get elected. That was never him. They need an intermediary... and that's Biden (which hinges on "hate Trump? well, you liked Obama, yes?"). The hope would be, next time around folks would be softened up enough for a Bernie type.

[Leo656]

It's not "sudden", they've been floating it for a while. Only NOW it doesn't look as batsh*t crazy as it did a year ago. We're all sitting around waiting on the government to send us our weekly stipend because we're "not allowed" to work, or else our industry no longer exists anymore, or whatever. They've manipulated the situation to the point where their lunacy looks like the only available option, which is what Leftists do. They didn't create the virus but they damn well knew how to create a panic and ride that sh*t to the bank. They never let a disaster go to waste.

Think I'm wrong? Go find a Cuban or Venezuelan who emigrated here. It varies some depending on where they live, but most of 'em plan to vote for Trump like they did last time. Why? "I've seen this sh*t before and I know how the story ends. No thanks. That's why I left There and came Here."

What do people on the Left always say? How do they always soft-soap people into believing their fairy tales about UBI or anything else? "Tax The Rich". Now overnight, anyone who works is technically "The Rich", and they're about to watch their taxes skyrocket to cover a few million people who are more or less permanently unemployed because of this disaster. UBI sounded good when it was only the millionaires supposedly footing the bill, but now with the economy completely bottomed out, if you're earning over $35 grand, you're "rich". And you will be taxed to pay for those who can't/won't work. Boy, it didn't take long to tip those scales, did it? How much changed in less than a year. "Tax the Rich" went from meaning "Get those evil billionaire crooks!" to "You make $15 an hour? HAH, no, you make six, the rest goes to Uncle Sam. There's some shut-ins who need a new XBox." Wouldn't have flown last year. Now? We almost don't have any choice, because "It's Dangerous Outside."

Big Picture. As Andrew said, not long ago AOC and her cronies were pushing pie-in-the-sky policies that had people laughing in their stupid faces. NOW, those ridiculous policies look like the only option we have to keep people from starving. And it didn't take much at all. A few people get sick, spread a little fear (easy to do when you own the media) and the rest takes care of itself.

See, you can't assume people are noble because they say they are. You have to look at what they DO and not what they say, and you have to pay attention to how the pieces fit. You have to ask "Who Benefits?" Because someone always does. This isn't jet fuel and steel beams, this is merely Observe and Report. Any reasonable person SHOULD be able to see it. The ones who don't are blinded by their childish belief in "Good Guys", especially ones who wear suits and make a living on their soapbox. "They'd never lie to us! They're the Good Politicians!" There's as many decent and honest politicians as there are decent and honest lawyers. Of course they're gonna manipulate tragedy to suit their own ends. That's their entire job! That's 100% of their function. That's ALL "The Government" does: Feed you sh*t, and tell you it's your fault. People who believe their lies deserve to bleed from the ass, they're the ones who bent over without looking both ways.

But yeah, it's definitely wise and much appreciated when people who aren't from here don't say much about The System, how it works or how it should. I may be an arrogant and ignorant American, but I'm not gonna squawk about the economic and domestic policies of New Zealand, for example, on account'a I ain't from there and I also don't care even a little. I have nothing to add to the conversation, that's 100% Their Business and I'm not involved. That's how most people should be. "Well, I live in ______, but I heard that in America..." Nope. Just don't do that. Nobody should do that, period. It's ignorant and it's vulgar no matter who does it. Mind your own yard, people.
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Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Again, there's pretty good odds there never will be one. Where's the universal vaccine for the common cold? Or a flu vaccine that doesn't change every year? Or is the idea that every year we show up for our yearly, mandatory COVID vaccination for the latest strain (I'm sure that will go swimmingly)?

Earlier the CDC said COVID doesn't mutate and a vaccine is imminent... now -- apparently -- it is mutating like crazy? OK. So time to go back to work and less with the wishful thinking. It's been the better part of a year now.

I don't think there's some grand conspiracy at play as much as the left using their existing power to usher things to their favor... which is getting people used to the universal benefits and Green New Deal model. Since when they tried to trot it out proper it was laughed out of the hall. But with the aid of a "pandemic"? Different ballgame.

Like, let's by all means take basic safeguards to return to normal... but liberty isn't supposed to be safe. It never was. Not in this country.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Absolutely. Bernie doesn't play well with others (as in, the democratic party).

Bonus: he stood no chance at getting elected because only like 10-15% of people want actual socialism. It wouldn't even be close. They knew this. Also, he looks and sounds like a crazy man.

I mean, they want what he's preaching. But more than that, they need someone who would actually be able to get elected. That was never him. They need an intermediary... and that's Biden (which hinges on "hate Trump? well, you liked Obama, yes?"). The hope would be, next time around folks would be softened up enough for a Bernie type.

[Wildcat]

Leo656,

Oh, I’m sorry about your dad. My dad passed away young too. It was from cancer. 10 years ago. He fought though. He had surgery and chemotherapy. He was fine for a couple of years but it returned.

I don’t know what else to say about the coronavirus. I really don’t watch the news consistently. I mostly just hear it in the background. I stopped reading up on it awhile back too.

I’m just say surely the news must be right to a reasonable extent. You can’t go around doubting or refuting everything being said just because “it’s the media”. That’s more like turning a blind eye, then...hey we tried to tell you.

The news, healthcare organizations and emergency services exist for a reason. If they told us nothing or downplayed things themselves there would be backlash over that instead. People cannot label everything as crying-wolf/agenda/scare tactics just because it’s “The Media”. I think you know what I’m saying.

Like of course this had to happen during an election. Which is always a mess imo. Anything that happened was gonna be turned into politics. It just happened to be a virus. I hate that.
——————
AndrewNDB,

If there’s no 1 time vaccine and it’s a yearly thing like the flu then ok. My point was there’s no legitimate defense against it. Until then why reopen everything and act like nothing is wrong? That does not make sense.

[Andrew NDB]

My dad was 11 years ago. Cancer as well.

But yes. Mark me down for everything Leo said. Also, I don't think it's any coincidence that the democrats pitched their new COVID relief plan way higher than the republicans said they'd swallow. They don't want it to pass. They know it won't (by the way, I'd love to be wrong as this impacts me).

"Some people just want to watch the world burn..."

But to remake it the way they want. That's what seems to be what's happening.

[Leo656]

Sorry about everyone's Dads. And thanks. Mine was pretty much ready, anyways. He was on a lot of pills and he didn't like living that way. That's how I know he'd be laughing all this sh*t off. "I might die? HAH. Oh well." I know he never WANTED to die exactly but he was really, really Catholic. "It ain't up to me anyways, I'll just keep having fun until they call my number, hopefully I go Up and not Down. I ain't sweating it, meanwhile." Again, I find that admirable.
------------

Wildcat: Because people die from colds, too, as was my earlier point. Or the flu, even though there are vaccines for that; people still die from it, all the time. People are ALWAYS going to die no matter how many precautions we take. We've taken every precaution, the precautions do little to nothing. Only effect is, our economy is in ruins and some people have no jobs to go back to. That's worse. That's INFINTELY more important than a few people having an extended coughing fit, even if some of those people die. I'm sorry if that's harsh, but it's a harsh REALITY and not just wishful thinking. The needs of the many need to outweigh the needs of the few, and the needs of the many, in this specific case, demand that we get things back on track economically and stop with the fear-mongering.

Again, in your case, Wildcat, a lot of your argument dismisses the idea that the media and the Leftists in government are lying and manipulating to serve their own ends. You CAN'T ignore or dismiss that, because it's not fantasy, it's absolute Fact and Reality. I've said this about you before, and I mean no disrespect by it at all, but you're TOO optimistic to the point of naivete sometimes. You think AOC or Kamala Harris cares about the numbers? They're smacking their chops, getting ready to make UBI the standard of living. They've talked and talked and talked, and NOW, out of nowhere, they can finally have what they've been pushing for. You think it's coincidence? There is no such THING as coincidence. There ARE no accidents. Things happen because they were set up to happen.

We have to go back to "everything is fine" because it MOSTLY is. Again, even the "official" story says, you're at very little risk unless you're old, fat, a smoker, or a junkie. Again, those are fantastic odds! Of course, the "official story" changes by the hour so tomorrow it will all be different, again. But the FACT is, we're cripping ourselves economically for the next 20 years and it's MOSTLY for no good reason. "Oh noes! Someone might get sick!" Yeah, and I might get a hangnail. You can't live that way. You simply can't. And the current situation is economically unsustainable. It won't matter HOW many people we "save" from the virus if half of those people go broke and hang themselves in six months. Of course, nobody cares about THAT. Never mind that there's already scattered reports of it happening. The economic toll is going to be far, FAR worse than the physical, if we stay the course as we've been. Enough is Enough.

As for why I mock and laugh at just about anything I see in a mainstream headline, it's because I have two eyes. I dismiss "The Official Story" on lots of things because the "official story" is always a Lie at worst and a half-truth at best. 100%. Look at George Floyd. "Innocent Victim, choked to death by the cops, hero of his community." OR, he was a violent junkie who once pressed a gun into a pregnant woman's stomach during a robbery, and was so high on Fentanyl that he was already wheezing "I can't breathe" before anyone laid a finger on him. Breonna Taylor, nurse's aid and innocent victim, gunned down for no reason. OR, as piles and piles of photos and video surveillance of her daily routine and wiretaps at the prison where her boyfriend "lived" tells us if we go past the headlines, she was managing her boyfriend's drug trafficking business, moving money and "product" around for him and other prisoners and keeping things warm until he got out. In the end, she died because she made bad choices in the company she kept. That's tragic, but that's still on her. You don't f*cking date drug dealers unless you're a moron. You reap what you sow on this Earth. But again, this isn't information the mainstream media spoon-feeds you. It's all FACTS, but they're facts they don't want you to find out because they're "inconvenient" to the narrative they're trying to create. But they're out there. You just have to look past the headlines and the memes. But that's the thing; it's the responsibility of "the media" to report ALL of the facts, not just the ones they prefer. But that's not how they operate. They operate on spin, 100% of the time. "George Floyd was a hero. Breonna Taylor was just an innocent victim. There's nothing in the drinking water. Oswald acted alone." False, false, false, and false.

You get my point. I dismiss "The Official Story" from the government and the media because they lie all the f*cking TIME. What choice do I have? A better question would be, why do YOU or anyone even pay attention and put such devout faith in what they tell you? You could do five minutes of independent research and immediately discover how little of "The Truth" they actually tell you on any given day. And once that happens, you realize they're trying to work you.

And as they say in my business, you simply can't Work a Worker. When you hustle people as a way of life, you know all the tricks and you can spot 'em by a mile.

[Wildcat]

Andrew NDB, Sorry about your dad too. I know what it’s like.
————
Leo656,

No offense taken. Sometimes my sister jokes that I’m too positive.

I agree the whole situation has definitely benefited some. No doubt getting to avoid others has at least been more convenient for certain people and of course it’s used in every argument right now.

It’s not that I put “devout faith” in the news. Like I said I don’t even sit down and watch it. I just hear it and move on.

It’s just the entire thing cannot be 99% scare tactic. Not even sure what individual journalists or health officials would have to gain. A President/Government official that may or may not have been elected anyway?

Again I hate that it happened during an election. I guess you think it was planned that way because you said no-coincidences but I don’t think you can orchestrate a pandemic to occur in your favor.

I mean you have to take stuff seriously at some time. You cannot dismiss everything as “The Media” and agenda. Warnings exist for a reason.

[Leo656]

You can't cause it but you can capitalize on it. And that's what they did. "Ooooh! A crisis! This'll get people good and pissed off. Nothing gets them ready to hand over their basic human rights like lots of dreariness and misery." Works every time. Worked after 9/11, too. Politicians never let a crisis go to waste. They love to jam a bunch of sh*tty and harmful policies through while everyone's too distracted and outraged to pay attention. That time it was the Republicans. This time, it's the Democrats. They all do it, it's basic Smoke & Mirrors. Nothing new about it. This is a very old game.

They didn't have to cause the pandemic. They just had to fudge the numbers and create a little manufactured outrage. The rest takes care of itself.

Lucky for people like AOC and Rachel Maddow, most people are very, very stupid. They'll believe anything you say as long as you pat 'em on the head and say "I am definitely on your side."

The thing is, by your own admission, you don't follow the events that closely. So you may have missed the part where "People staying at home and getting a 'free' check from the government" was always part of the Master Plan on the Left. And look what we're already doing? This is the part of the game called "social conditioning", where they get you used to an idea as a way of life before finally springing it on you that it's permanent. Like the "Emergency Powers" in the aftermath of 9/11 that led to the Patriot Act and everything that gave the government the right to outright spy on its citizens like the Gestapo. Left Side, Right Side, it really doesn't matter. The thing that never changes is that the government is NOT on your side, and that they're lying to you 100% of the time while they find ways to screw you and me over just a little bit harder and deeper by the day.

In this case it was always about UBI. Here's what the Left has been working for since March when this opportunity presented itself in the form of the virus: Tank the economy, ELIMINATE jobs, blame it all on Trump's lack of leadership, then swoop in and say, "We'll save you! We'll save you with our 'free' money! These Stimulus Packages will NEVER end! We know you're scared to go outside, so here, just take the check! It's not as much as you'd make at a real job, sure, but... it's SOMEthing, right! Just take it!" Pretty easy to do when most people already have no choice but to stay home and take the check because their job no longer even exists. Now all they have to do is officially sign it into law, provided Their Guy wins the election, aaaaaand Done. UBI becomes law, "Green New Deal" is next. The two are directly connected, because the Democrats WANT people unemployed so they're not "killing the planet" by driving or commuting to work. More unemployed people staying home = Less overburden and pollution. UBI is the first domino, Green New Deal is the one right behind it. The two policies are intertwined. And they both had NO chance of happening before all this mess started. Now look where we are. We're 7/10s there already. And all they had to do was jump on a situation that was already happening and spin it to their convenience.

They think they're slick. They're not. It's just that most people don't pay close enough attention. It was always about using the situation surrounding the pandemic as a Trojan Horse to push through a bunch of policies which, not even a year ago, were laughable. But who's laughing now? Nobody but Them.

And they blame Trump for his handling of the virus when he's the one with everything to lose from the situation. Sure, he fumbled it badly. But that's because he's generally kind of an idiot, so it's no surprise. But the people working against him are positively Machiavellian by comparison. I promise you, he did not want the economy to tank. But the Democrats absolutely did. It's in their benefit. They always swoop in when things go south and promise to fix it, but all they ever do is Tax and Spend, and nothing ever gets resolved, they just keep robbing Peter to pay Paul and figure they'll all be dead by the time it comes around to actually paying the tab. And with just a tiny little nudge, they now got everything they wanted. Now it's just a matter of seeing what happens in November.

All of a sudden, they're thisclose to getting everything they wanted, things that were impossible not even a year ago. And they hardly had to do anything at all. "Funny" how that works.

None of this is complicated, by the way. You just have to look at the situation, ANY situation, ask "Who benefits?" and work backwards from there.

Funny thing is, my job's gone and it isn't coming back. It'll be really, really hard for me to get another one for a lot of reasons. In theory, I should be jumping up and down at what the Democrats are proposing with UBI. "YAY, I never have to work again, I just have to scrape by on whatever pittance the government deems appropriate." Sounds great in theory. But for one thing, I fully understand, unlike most people, that a system like that isn't sustainable and will only tank things even further until we're as bad off as Venezuela, and secondly, they have a name for that kind of lifestyle and it's called "Slavery". Sitting around living off whatever scraps your "Masters" throw you and telling you that you ought'a be grateful for that, even. I'd honestly rather work.

AND. I'd love to do it without wearing a stupid mask, if I'm given anything resembling a choice in the matter.

[Wildcat]

Actually I see some of that being true. That some want to make themselves look better or not have to deal with certain things.

There must be 2 sides though. One where people want to use the situation and one where it’s just about the virus because there was clearly an outbreak and many have died.

I admit I’m not into politics but I know what’s going on. It’s unavoidable. I don’t watch those 24 hour news channels but I get the gist of it.

People should take the virus as a separate entity though. That’s what it is. I think it’s scary to dismiss warnings for “reasons”. Health should take priority.

Under all the debate there is truth to it. When someone is telling you to look out you should probably listen and get out of the way. Hope that analogy makes sense.

[Leo656]

Politicians 100% do not care about people dying. Nothing about their job is a public service. It's a game show. It's called "How To Somehow Make Fifty Million Dollars In Four Years Or Less On A Civil Servant's Salary." It's all a game, and that game is rigged.

They're not your friends, and we are not their concern. We are but slaves, and they are the Masters. They Own You. They won't come right out and say it, but that's the game. You pay taxes? Then They Own You.

It's all a great, big giant scam. They're not sitting up there in their ivory towers thinking "How can we save those poor people?" Not a single one. They WANT you to die. You die, that's one less Social Security check they have to write in a few years, one less pension they have to pay out. One less mouth to feed. You don't matter to them.

Please do not expect altruism and pure-heartedness from people whose sole ambition in life was to become The Ruling Class. Don't ROOT for the slave-owners, I'm begging you. Don't look for a human soul or the slightest hint of genuine compassion from ANY of these dirtbags.

These are people who when asked "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" answered "I want to have ALL the power and make ALL the rules."

In other words, they're human filth. Red or Blue doesn't matter. Every single politician is a lizard person in a human costume, and they would eat your skin while you were still wearing it if it would somehow help their approval ratings.

Again, please don't be naive. There are no "good people" on Capitol Hill looking out for Yours or My best interests. There are only jackals playing fiddles while Rome burns. You cannot be a politician AND a "good person" at the same time. Those ideas are 100% irreconcilable.

They want you to die, so they can cry fake crocodile tears and blame The Other Side for it. You and I Don't Matter. We're not in the club. We're expendable. We're numbers. That's all we are. That's all anyone ever is, if they're not in the .000001% Club. AKA, "The People Who Write The Rules WE All Have To Follow But They're Magically Exempt From." You don't wear a suit and make empty speeches on TV for a living? Then guess what? You're ballast. And they don't care about you.

I really need people to "get" this. It's positively maddening that some people actually think there are people Up Top trying to genuinely "Do Good" on this Earth. They think that there are POLITICIANS out there trying to "save the world". Stop that. Stop believing that. It simply isn't true.

You HAVE to realize that Evil Exists. And that it doesn't wear a mask, it's a thousand-headed dragon in a tailored suit. It sits at every desk of every government building from Town Hall to the White House.

"Government" is a Necessary Evil. BUT. Necessary Evil is still Evil.

I am begging for this to sink in.